Female Athletes File First Appeal of House Settlement, Citing Title IX Violations Gender Equity Standards

We knew it was coming, and now a group of female athletes have filed an appeal of the recently approved house settlement, which they say violates the Title IX gender equity statute. 

The appeal was filed on Wednesday by the Hutchinson Black and Cook law firm, which is going after the backpay portion of the settlement. While there were a number of objections to the settlement that focused on Title IX impacts, this is the first appeal filed against the judgment from Claudia Wilken. 

In their argument, which was first reported by FOS, the group says that the $2.8 billion judgment that would be paid out to former athletes did not equate to what the female student athletes should've received from the settlement, compared to male athletes participating in basketball and football. 

According to a statement, an attorney representing the group says that there is a discrepancy of $1.1 billion that women athletes should be able to recoup. 

The filing was presented on behalf of eight different female athletes that participated in volleyball, track and soccer from three different schools. 

While Judge Claudia Wilken did say that this was an antitrust case, and not a gender-equity case, female athletes could sue based on Title IX rules in their actions related to the case. 

In a statement provided to FOS attorney Ashylyn Hare says that the backpay damages are different from a company like Nike, compared to the actual schools and conferences that these athletes competed in. 

"The settlement suggests schools would have paid male athletes over 90% of their revenue over the past six years as though Title IX didn’t apply," Ashlyn told FOS. "If Nike wants to do that, that is their choice. If the school, or a conference acting on the school’s behalf tries to do that, they are violating the law. They can either pay the athletes proportionately, or they can return all of their federal funds. But they can’t do both."

Now will come the interesting arguments from the appeal, given that these lawsuits were certainly coming down the pipe. There are other lawsuits that are being put together as we speak, which will go after the House settlement for the same reasons laid out in this appeal. 

While this will not affect the payments that will start on July 1st, it does put a halt to the backpay damages that were scheuled to start being processed to athletes.